“Echo?” Shard asked. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Was,” she replied, “but that never lasts long. Listen, Mum may have put me in charge of keeping her here, but that doesn’t mean I have to obey.” She stepped into the light of the night rainbows. “I know what it’s like to make hard decisions to protect the ones closest to me. I know it better than any of you. I also know that this war cannot go how Mum wants it to. If no one warns the West, our entire civilization will collapse, both colonies will be lost, and the valley will be controlled by outsiders, rogues, and wildcats. The more I think about it, the more I realize she has to go. Ember, you have to ruin their plans.”
Shard pinned back his ears. “But . . . but what about Hyrees? Ember, you aren’t going to leave him like this, are you?”
Ember yawned, then bit her tongue, jaw still shaking. ‘Have to go? Leave him? Leave him like what? No, come on, Ember. Time to face everything. Stop running.’ She breathed out a long, slow breath. “I have to do what I have to do.”
“B-but he’s your mate. You love him, don’t you?”
“Shard, it’s our only chance at making it through this. Stop trying to discourage her,” Echo said.
“You’re only saying that because you want her gone. You want to be the only friend I have again, because you’re too afraid to trust anyone else. There. I said it.”
‘Fight? Fight. Please don’t. I don’t want this.’
“Please, s-stop, everyone,” Ember mewed. “Yes, Shard, I love him. But it’s because I love him that I have to leave. It’s hard to explain, so please don’t make me.” She got up and walked toward the stick pile. “N-now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like some time alone.”
To her relief, none of them followed. She selected a largish stick from the pile, then went back to her quarters. It wasn’t an ideal clawmarking surface; the wood was knotted and lichens coated the bark. She sniffed back her tears and scraped off what imperfections she could. For the few moments following, she couldn’t move. Her mind locked up and became flooded with grey. She lifted her paw to her face and examined the claws she wasn’t supposed to carve with. Hyrees’s quiet breathing provided tiny bursts of sound to focus on. For the first time in her entire life, she wanted him to snore louder.
Ember sighed. The claws gripping her heart held on more tightly.
First off, I’m sorry I couldn’t say any of these things to you sooner, and with my mouth. I just didn’t know how to say them, and I didn’t really want to. Honestly, I still don’t want to, but I need you to know that I’m not just doing this for me and my family. I’m doing this for you. I want you to be happy, and I’ve realized you can’t have that with me. I’ve hurt you. I’ve hurt you a lot. I’ve known you were afraid of heights almost as long as I’ve known you, yet I made you stay in the History Tree with me, even after you asked over and over to get a normal den. And I’d be lying if I pretended you haven’t hurt me back. When you agreed to come with me, then decided you wanted to die, and a few days ago, when you ate those berries, those were the most selfish things you could possibly have done. You hurt me. I hurt you. I don’t see any way this can possibly work out that won’t keep this pattern going. Aside from that, you want a family, and not only can I not give you one, but I don’t want to make one. And since I’m being honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever—
A tiny, involuntary mew escaped her mouth. ‘What am I doing? This is true, isn’t it? Is it?’ She looked up at Hyrees. Something caught in her throat, choking her for a moment. It took everything inside of her to keep from sobbing. Tears rolled down her soaked cheeks and dripped onto the stick and surrounding ground. ‘Yes. It’s true. It’s all true. Why am I only just now fully realizing this? Tahg. Hyrees, what have I done? This is all just a big mess. All a mess, and now I’m hurting. We both are.’
She swallowed hard, wiped her eyes, and kept going.
I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way toward you. I love you, Hyrees. I really do. But it’s always been as a friend. Never more, never less. I only agreed to become your mate because our parents wanted it, and you wanted it. I was so afraid of disappointing any of you that I said ‘yes’. Fear has made me do a lot of things I regret. It got me here, and that’s why I have to go. This is my last chance to try to make all this right. I’m running out of room on this stick, so I’m going to have to get another one. There's a lot more I want to say. I think I’ll number them so you’ll know which order to read them in. For reference, this is one.
She went back to the stick pile to get another clawmarking surface. Back at the edge of the Rift, Echo and Shard had their heads on each other’s shoulders. Shard had his paws wrapped around her sides in a loving embrace. Boreal sat a few leaps away, watching them with a perfectly readable look of sadness. Ember sniffed. ‘I’ll miss y’all so much.’ She forced herself to look away and go back to Hyrees. The second stick had a nicer, more smooth surface, so she didn’t have to prepare it like the other one. She went back to clawmarking.
And here’s stick two. But as I was saying, I have to fix the mistakes I can fix, and now is my last chance to do it. It involves going back home, though. And being alone in the Lowlands, and pretty much everything else I’m afraid of. So, what I’m trying to say, I guess, is that I might not make it. And if I do die, that’s okay. I’ve never really felt like I belonged here in Dark’s Valley anyway. But even if I do survive, I probably won’t ever see you again. Jade will want to kill me, and Lupine already wants me dead. I won’t exactly have a lot of options left after this, so I guess if I do make it, I’ll try to go find Bracken and his group. The thing is, I don’t want to see you again. Well, I do. I already do, but if you come find me, you can’t have the life you want and deserve. I hope you find what you’re looking for here in the East. If you wake up, take care of Shard and Boreal. And maybe Echo too. She’s a good cat. I don’t really know what else to say. Other than goodbye, I guess. Oh, and I love you. I really do love you, and I want you to be happy.
She smiled and wiped away another round of tears as they formed. Her mind wandered through the past, bringing up long-forgotten memories of her and Hyrees playing together as kittens. The ever-vivid memory of the time he’d gotten ‘stuck’ half a leap up a small tree made her chuckle. ‘One last thing, Ember. Then you really do need to go.’ She shook away the memories and forced her focus back onto finishing the stick.
And I guess I should probably thank you for putting up with me all this time. It’s been an adventure. Thanks for sharing it with me. Take care of yourself. Bye.
She tucked both sticks beneath his paws and held her breath, as if they could magically heal him. Nothing happened. She sighed. A cold emptiness settled on her heart, like all the life had been drained out of her soul. ‘Tahg, I feel kind of silly now. I guess he can get someone to read them for him. It’s not like I can stay and wait to tell him myself. Sorry, Hyrees. It’s all I’ve got. Thanks for being there for me. Friend. Now I have to go, so you take care. Find someone else. Have that family. You’ll make such a great dad.’
Ember smiled again, imagining tiny Hyrees kittens running around, pestering and playing with their father. She bent over to lick his forehead. “Goodbye. I’m gonna miss you, you know.”
In response, his whiskers twitched. ‘And you’re gonna make it. I know you will. I know it.’
She walked back over to her new friends. Boreal ran to meet her halfway, crying. “I wish you’d stay, but I know you won’t. Please let me come with you.”
Ember buried her face in Boreal’s fur. “W-w-where I’m going, I’m . . . I’m probably going to die. I have to do this alone. I can’t . . . let you come with me.”
“I don’t have anything left here. I hate this place, Ember. Please, let me go with you. I can help.”
“No, y-you have to stay.” As she said it, her mind wandered to Kivyress and the goodbyes they’d exchanged. “I don’t think I could live with myself if you got hurt following me. Hyrees is going to wake up
soon. I know he is. He needs you and Shard to be here for him. Please take care of him. I made him some messages on numbered sticks explaining why I have to go. If one of you, or both of you taking turns, could read them to him when he wakes up, I’d really appreciate it. It might change how you see me, but . . . I guess there’s something to be said for honesty.”
Shard pressed his head against her side. “You really think he’ll wake up? And, wait, did you say you were going to die? You really think you’re going to die? Ember—Ember, please, no. I want you to come back.”
“You know I can’t,” Ember said. She pulled away from them both. “I have to go now. The longer I stay, the more likely I’ll get caught.”
“Wait,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to tell you something, so I might as well do it now, since I may never see you again.” He swallowed hard and looked at her, making eye contact for a moment. “You know how, on the night you first got here, you asked for my help, and we fixed your broken leg all by ourselves? When you told me you didn’t think anyone else would have helped you, and that I’d saved your life, that was . . . I suppose it was the first time I’d ever felt, well, useful. Like I might not be such a disappointment or a failure after all. I wanted to thank you for that. It-it meant a lot. And it still does.”
Ember pressed her forehead against his. “You’re a good cat, Shard. I hope others start to recognize that. Hyrees is lucky he’s got you as a mentor. Please take care of him, and make sure he doesn’t try to follow me.”
“We will.” Echo stepped closer to them. She nodded toward the wall of bramble. “Now you’d better get going. The sooner you leave, the more time you have to get a head start.”
“She has a point,” Boreal said quietly, “and so do you, but even if I stay here now, don’t think that doesn’t mean I’m not going to leave the East. I may still have a mother out there somewhere. I still want to find her, or at least find out what happened to her. Who knows? Maybe our paths will cross again someday.”
Ember forced a slight smile. “Maybe. Bye, everyone. Thanks for everything.” She sucked in a deep breath, then stepped out from the shadow of the Rift. Above, the night rainbows offered to light the trail to freeing her family for good. ‘One last chance,’ she thought. ‘Better make it count, Em.’
“Remember,” Echo called. “Mum’s still got guards out tonight, so to get past them, you’ll need to take the trees. Think you can do that?”
“I can try,” she replied.
“And do you know a cat named Bracken?”
She hesitated. ‘Bracken? You know him? How? How is this relevant?’ “Urm, uh, yeah, yes. Yes, I know him.”
“Good,” Echo said. “He might be able to help you. Be safe, then. Wildcat. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“You too. Good luck with your mom.”
“I don’t need luck. Now scram.”
Boreal and Shard called out their goodbyes in sorrowfully subdued voices. Ember replied to them both, breath forming clouds of steam like smoke rising from a dying fire—a fire she hoped she could find a way to rekindle. She stopped for water at the drinking spring, then padded away from the Rift and toward the Lowlands. She looked over her shoulder a few times before stopping to take a quick picture of her Eastern friends. It wouldn’t be the most cheerful photo ever, but it would be enough to help her keep them in her memory. As the image faded from her mind’s eye, she passed through the bramble wall. If she looked back now, she knew she would only see a decaying forest. So, with the pink and green glow of the night rainbows guiding her path, she kept moving forward.
Chapter 31
Ember
It wasn’t hard getting around, or at least over, the guards. It wasn’t even hard walking in the Lowlands—at least not at first—but as the night wore on, her resolve faded. Whatever comfort the night rainbows, or auroras, had once given her disappeared along with the lights themselves. While they’d still glowed overhead, she’d asked Thai questions about them. After they vanished, she ran out of questions to ask, and her mind became too jumbled and grey to think of another topic.
As the sun began to rise, frost settled, and fog filled the valley. She was shaking so hard it was difficult to walk properly. Finally, she stopped and asked Thai to figure out a way to calm her down. Thai started playing human music through her ETAg, which only made things worse. She turned it off and sat by a small, mist-shrouded pond to ease her anxieties. After a quick drink, she dubbed the place ‘Silver Pond’ and continued onward, deeper into the heart of the Lowlands.
As the first glow of dawn illuminated the eastern sky, she realized the distance between her and her enemies was fixed. Any significant delays and they would catch up to and kill her. The thought made her shiver all over again. Yet, despite the fear, every few moments she found herself needing to blink the sleep from her eyes. To keep herself awake, she turned her attention back to Thai. She discovered some lectures on human history and listened to them through her tag with Thai serving as translator. The human voices speaking the lectures also doubled as deterrents for unwanted predators.
Dawn turned into morning, and morning turned into midday. She took a small break from learning the history of a place called ‘Greece’ to try to hunt. She eventually abandoned the attempt with an empty stomach. When midday turned into evening, she was ready to collapse. She’d grown tired of the lectures and turned them off again. Now the forest was filled with silence and the occasional bird chirp.
As she moved, a new sound appeared and grew louder: flowing water—the valley creek. It was a wide, bubbly body of water speckled with slick stones. Patches of ice lined its edges, and swirling mist rose from its foamy rapids. She ran to it and lapped her fill. As she drank, she closed her eyes and imagined herself back at home with the Kivyress. Just for good measure, she imagined her sister being there too, running and playing and looking up at her with those bright, yellow eyes. Not injured or disabled in any way.
She opened her eyes. Across the creek, a red fox licked at the water. His shadowy figure was smaller than she’d expected a fox to be. He eyed her suspiciously though the settling fog but made no moves to chase or avoid her. Part of her wondered if it was because of the creek, but the rest of her considered the possibility that foxes weren’t as bad as their reputations made them seem.
After she’d filled her grumbling stomach with water, Ember climbed up a nearby tree. ‘I guess I should spend the night here. Thai, could you maybe wake me up two hours after midnight? I want to get as much of a head start as I can.’
[Can do, Ember. Sleep well.]
‘Thanks.’ She settled down in a rough fork in the branches and tried to fall asleep. Despite having gone for two days without a full night of slumber, her body refused to let her rest. Her mind struggled to fight off the anxieties of being in an unknown place. Foreign branches rustled, strange owls screeched, and every noise made her tense. She wrapped her paws over her ears and tried to pretend she was back in the History Tree. It didn’t work. The History Tree wasn’t beside a creek.
[Incoming call from Dr. Hye-sung Sagong.]
[Would you like to answer?]
The question came at her from everywhere. Ember snapped to attention. ‘Ack! What? Now? Uh, yes. Yes, please. This was . . . Er, hi?’
“Ember?” Hye’s familiar voice asked. It was his regular, spoken voice, which made it even more comforting. “Hey. Listen, I am so sorry it’s taken this long to get back with you. This past week has been absolute hell. Heh. Almost literally. So, Matthew said you’d been trying to contact him and, uh, and Michelle for a while. Wait, not now, Inau. Daddy’s on the phone.” A voice in the background whispered some kind of question, too quiet for Thai to translate. “Yes, fine. As long as you do it outside. Be back in by nightfall, and don’t kill your brother.” Hye sighed. “Sorry about that. I got my kids a pair of wooden swords for their birthday, and now they’re all they want to play with. I don’t know what I was thinking. I, uh, hope everything’s been o
kay in your world.”
She settled back down, resting her chin on her legs. ‘Not really. A lot has happened since I last saw you. Things were bad the night I got hit, but everything is so much worse now. The entire valley seems be set on destroying itself, and I have no idea how to stop it, but impulsive little me decided to give it a try. So wait, you said Matthew and Michelle knew I was calling them, didn’t you? I don’t mean to sound rude, but why didn’t they answer? Did I scare them away?’
A pit formed in her stomach when he didn’t reply. ‘Are they okay? Did they get in trouble for helping me?’
He let out a long, slow breath. “Ember, I only said Matthew knew.”
Ember jumped to her paws, suddenly unable to lay still. She lost her balance for a moment and nearly toppled out of the tree, but caught herself and sat down. ‘What do you mean? What happened?’
“Did I ever tell you we humans are fighting a war too? I think I did, but well, in short, Michelle is still alive, but she’s hurt really badly. She was in a building with a lot of people, and the people we’re fighting with set off these things called explosives inside that building.”
She thought back to the history lectures she listened to. Explosives—humans used them to kill lots of people at a time, sometimes innocents, in their own fights. She didn’t want to imagine what it looked like, but her overactive mind ignored her unspoken pleas and sent her pictures of destruction and violence anyway.
“The whole thing collapsed,” he continued, “and most of the people inside were killed. She’s lucky to still be breathing, but . . .”
She started to shiver again. ‘But what?’
“But she still hasn’t woken up. There’s a chance she might not make it. Matthew and Lake are, understandably, upset. Matt asked me to tell you not to bother calling them for a while. He’s not in the mood to talk to almost anyone right now, and phone calls make him especially anxious. He said he hopes you can understand.”
Wildcat Page 51
